Posted
by
kdawsonon Tuesday May 01, 2007 @03:44PM
from the you-can't-copyright-that dept.

Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?

These people seem to crack it using Windows based soft-players using the X-Box USB attachment (USB connection is the unencrypted weak link). Perhaps the MPAA should leave the bloggers alone and look at what Microsoft is doing.

Microsoft is a cancer that attaches itself in an security sense to everything it touches...

The mere fact that geeks regularly cooperate on a massive scale (i'd hazard the only people who cooperate on a larger scale are organised religions) illustrates that we do not lack the social skills necessary for our society.

That is no more social than someone alone in their car on a highway surrounded by thousands of other people alone in their cars. They are all doing the same thing, and they are technically doing it together and cooperatively, but it is by no means social.

Yet another inept car analogy I see.

When you drive down the motorway, in general everyone is going to a different place and doesn't care about where anyone else is going to. You have to take into consideration what they're doing on the motorway, however.

When people work to crack something like this, they are all working to the same end, and do not necessarily know what each other is doing to that end, although sometimes people discuss their ideas to get feedback etc.

If you treat the hex string as a sequence of unsigned big-endian U16s, and then look up the sequence of corresponding words in OSX's password dictionary, you get "edit view phosphor beautified sorcerous crushed kneader deadline".

...anyone else just print out this number to stick on their wall? Let 'em try to pull the sites down; I doubt they'll be able to ransack the collective homes/businesses that now have this in hard copy. I've not laughed this hard since Sony's $1-Sharpie-Workaround.

Use their own weapons against them! Let's learn from Turk 182 [wikipedia.org] and use that same method. Who is going to be the first one to decorate MPAA property with 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 ?

If ever a story deserved to be tagged hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 then it's this one. Remember, your tag must start with an alphabetical character, and it takes a lot more tagging than it used to to get up there in lights.

On a serious note, I am the owner of hdkeys.com, and I have felt the full brunt of this censorship. I established the site back when BackupHDDVD was released, and modified the source adding the ability for the program to automatically retrieve volume keys from the site when they were not found in the local key database. In addition, there was a searchable form on the index page where you could lookup keys. At first, I received a DMCA takedown sent to my dedicated host provider (Layered Technologies), demanding that my hosted copy of BackupHDDVD be removed. This demand arrived at the same time Sourceforge received a similar letter. A month or so passed by and I received another letter, this time through my registrar, GoDaddy, demanding that I remove all the volume keys from the site or be sued out of house and home. In addition, the second letter dictated that I must call the law firm and inform them that I have complied. I complied, but did not notify them. The site has been offline since then. As far as I'm concerned, they demanded something of me, it's up to them to confirm that I have complied. So in recap, I've been threatened, strong armed, and intimidated (you should have read those letters), via my webhost and registrar for simply hosting:

It disturbs me that I get that reference. I didn't even think it was a very good book, more like a celebration of everything that was wrong with the dot bomb era. Also the the story fell apart in the last 100 pages or so, kind of like Stephenson just stopped caring and wanted to get the thing done.

You're making fun of someone for being a nerd on slashdot? You must be joking.

Yes, I was a famous/infamous nerd in high school, and I gloried in it. I also had girlfriends in high school; did you, O anonymous coward?

As for your literal question of getting beat up a lot, I was not just a big time nerd, I was also 6 foot 2 inches, an athlete, was a friendly extrovert, and had social skills; not all nerds fit your stereotype. Now my nerdiness supports my career as a computer engineer. How's your fast food job treating you?;-)

(You could have just come right out and asked what a prime number is, you know; you don't have to launch an attack each of the many times every day that you feel ignorant.)

Geek and nerd used to be synonymous. The meaning of geek you describe was invented by geeks to reclaim the word geek, kind of like the queer community reclaimed the world "queer," except that the queer community didn't have to change the meaning of the word, merely the attitude behind it, since they were fine with being queer.

Unlike the gay-bi folks who reclaimed the word "queer," the geeks who reclaimed "geek" were self-haters. They were ashamed of being socially inept, excluded, and driven to alternative worlds by their treatment in this one. Fortunately, there were positive aspects of geekiness, so they simply threw out the negative characteristics and stressed the positive ones.

Ultimately, this will backfire. By attempting to erase their negative attributes, the geeks (nerds) will end up losing their claim on the positive attributes once associated with them. They will be defined solely by their negative characteristics. (I am serious about this. Bear with me while I explain.)

The rest of the world bears so little ill-will toward geeks (unlike queers, whom homophobes hate passionately) that they allowed geeks to redefine the word geek. After all, geeks (sorry, nerds) weren't trying to shoulder their way into the circles they were excluded from. Society didn't want nerds to be condemned and repressed; they just didn't want the nerds asking them for dates, sitting with them at lunch, and trying to go to their parties. Most nerds are quite happy living without those things, especially now that they have a positive label for themselves. Since nerds accept the boundaries imposed on them, society feels no need to remind them of what make them different.

(Technology nerds have been successful in business, where successful is idempotent with welcome, for over a century, maybe much longer. The rise of Bill Gates et al. was not an invasion of new territory.)

Ironically, stripping the negative aspects out of the word "geek" made it possible for non-inept, non-excluded people to accept the geek label and still enjoy their status as full-fledged people. That means that the excluded and inept can no longer comfort themselves with their geek status, because all the cool aspects of geekdom have been invaded by good-looking and/or confident people who are able to understand the mysteries of human interaction.

Geeks (ack! again, I mean nerds) no longer have any safe haven or any unique reason to live. They can't claim that the world would fall apart without them, except in the same sense that immigrant laborers can. (Who else is willing to pick strawberries and do the IT grunt work?) They can't even confidently stay out of the danger zone anymore. That guy with the faded Space Invaders shirt might look like a good guy for a nerd to talk to, but it's possible -- nay, likely -- that he is a normal person who will be put off by the nerd's social clumsiness, resulting in awkwardness and humiliation. Conversely, a badge of identity such as a D&D shirt that might in the past have protected a nerd from being approached by people with normal standards of social aptitude no longer conveys any protection. There is nothing for a nerd to do but attempt social intercourse and hope his interlocuters will not be horrified, or at least protect his dignity by hiding their horror.

I predict that a new way of labeling and sorting people will arise that will help protect normal and socially defective people from uncomfortable interactions. Naturally, the normal folks want to seem (and feel) fair, compassionate, and justified, so the criteria for exclusion, while remaining the same as ever, will be described in terms of mental illness and emotional intelligence. Mental illness will be cited in order to point out that social incompetence makes people dangerous, both in trivial ways (inappropriate, annoying behavior) and serious ones (stalking, spree killing). Emotional intelligence will be invoked whenever it is necessary to place responsibility for the exclusion on

It's amazing to see just how worthless and futile DRM is. It penalizes the poor saps who don't have the know-how to override it. As for the rest, and that includes the pirates, it's no obstacle at all.

If you had a lock that kept out only the people you actually wanted in, but couldn't keep out those that were actually going to rob you blind, one would think that your solution might be a little more robust than "I'll see anyone who reports how badly my lock works".

Nonono. You're missing the point. The people who can break DRM are the ones who have the movies. The movies are mind-wrenchingly bad and will cause your brain to explode. The upshot is that only the brains of pirates will be destroyed. Don't you see? This is the most cunning plan Baldrick has come up with yet!

I was amazed at the quickness of the censors, when I clicked on the link here, and got the "Nothing to see here, please move along." message. I've often seen people say that they got that message, but was never quite sure if it actually happened. This time it did. In cooperation with the summary, here's the number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

I also hear there is a website devoted 2 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 by some guy in Scottlande or someplace. They say he's really crazy 'cuz his wife went into labor the day discovered 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 an she wouldn't let him look at 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 so when they got home from the hospital he cut her up and buried her in teh yard and then ate his own baby with some chips, oh delicious chips. So they caught him but he managed to memorize 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 and smuggled it into prison with him and the other convicts tried too take it away from him in the shower so he cut them up and ate them to, in fact he went on a rampage and ate all th prison guards with some chips, oh delicious chips. And then he sat down at th warden's desk and stared at 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 only stopping when he had 2 pee in a potted plant in th corner of the room. After memorizing 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 he found th prison surrounded by teh Army and there was a guy on a bullhorn named Dr. Quartermass who was telling him 2 put down teh fork and come out with his hands up. But he managed to escape through the sewers and they couldn't catch him but they found his bag of chips, oh delicious chips. They say he's still hiding too this day in th mountains of Scotchland, th Alpes, updating his website with 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 every day. They also say of your are backpacking in the Alpes that you'd better not carry any chips, oh delicious chips. They say they'll never catch him 2 because there are laws that protect mountain people and the police are scared too go up there. But he has 2 come to a city once a month on teh seventh day and he breaks into a house that has a computer and he types 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 over and over and he eats anyone at home with chips, oh delicious chips. So the police are hoping to catch him when he goes 2 the city but so far he's eaten over 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 people and 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 bags of chips, oh delicious chips so it seems like there is no stopping him. You may think I'm making all this up but it's the truth and I know it cause I asked my friend who works at the MPAA and it said it's true so it is.

Time to get out and use the old pen to write a nice little letter to my congress critter.

I'm all for someone using their rights to protect what is their's. Not a problem, but when it dictates what they can do with the things they own, and speech, I think it has crossed a line I'd rather it not cross.

Some say Americans just take the abuse and can't see what the big deal is, unless it might cause re-runs of Friends to be pulled. Some people say Americans are sheep and will go where a select class of people point for them to go. I have sometimes seen these rights dry up a little when not constantly defended, and I start to think American's are lemmings, not sheep.

I guess I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I'm no fool. I can see I'm like that also, but I'm trying really hard to be different.

I've been frenetically digging up incoming stories about this. This is nolonger about the key itself but one's freedom of speech. This demonstrates the worst of the DMCA and how it's being used to harm people's freedom and fair use rights.

Tags can contain numbers but mustn't start with a number. It won't give you an error but you'll see that it doesn't "remember" your tag like it normally would. Don't think the dollar sign works at the beginning of a tag either either. So the tag needs to be something like : hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

I repudiate the DMCA, and all who would enforce it. It is a corrupt law, born of a corrupt process, in the service of corrupt people. As such, I will not respect or observe it, and you shouldn't, either.

When I read this slashdot post, the first thing I thought was "I bet there's a wikipedia article on it!" Sure enough, either somebody has posted one and it's been deleted and protected, or the editors went ahead and jumped on it and protected it [wikipedia.org]. (I haven't checked yet, though there are "additional information links. Nor have I check it in other bases.)

Guess I should look into postng this to one of the "anti-censorship on wikipeida" sites.

For what it's worth, this is utter crap, but it shows a severe weakness in copyright law. Anything that can be represented with data, anything at all, can be encoded/encrpyted on anything else, given an arbitrary coding mechanism. For instance, let us create "sabre86's stanard coding scheme": add 1 to any number. After encoding we have 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1. Look, it's a different number! I guess it isn't a circumvention. Or is it?

You can extend this logic arbitarily to anything, so that not only can any string represent any other string (and thus be a "copy"), any string can be the key to an encoding scheme, meaning that posting any string is "circumvention" if I see fit to describe my encryption process such that it encrypts/encodes a copyrighted work using that string as a "key."

So all strings are copyrighted because they can derived from other copyrighted strings through an arbitrary encoding scheme and all strings are potentially circumventions of DRM/CRAP because they are both a representation of a known key in a different encoding and the key for some other arbitrary encryption algorithm that "circumvents the copyright protections."

How long must a number be to be copyrightable? Any digital file, including programs, can be written as a number, yet obviously pictures and programs can be copyrighted. The number 1 cannot be copyrighted, but the 98641-decimal-digit number corresponding to the original Super Mario Bros. ROM images can be. Where is the line drawn? Can cryptographic keys be copyrighted? Can the MPAA use a (long) key containing a copyrightable image so that the cryptographic key is copyrighted as well?

I'm sorry, but you can't claim Copyright on a randomly generated cryptographic key. That is because a randomly generated key does not meet the minimum creativity requirements of Copyright law. No creative input == No Copyright. The bar is very low but a randomly generated key patently does not meet it.

Digg really screwed up this time. At the time of this posting their whole front-page is plastered with key related articles sharing the hex in various ways. Not to mention the other dozens of upcoming stories going up the digg rankings within minutes. The chaos reminds me of IRC channel take overs back in the day. This is truly a digital revolt. Today I am proud to be a geek.